Why are we printing public employee pay?

Why publish public salary information for easy public access? It can act as a deterrent to government corruption or uncover governmental mismanagement.

Why publish public salary information for easy public access?

It can act as a deterrent to government corruption or uncover governmental mismanagement.

Case in point: Eight city officials in Bell, Calif., were charged with misappropriating public funds in 2010 after a series of reports by the Los Angeles Times revealed they received extravagant salaries.

Robert Rizzo, Bell's former city manager, racked up an annual salary of nearly $800,000, while his assistant earned $376,000. The chief of police made $457,000.

The salaries were agreed to by city council members, who were paid $100,000 for meeting once a month.

The median annual income in the low-income Los Angeles suburb was less than $35,000 at the time. Bell homeowners were paying higher property taxes than those of Beverly Hills.

Residents were outraged.

The city manager and police chief resigned when their deals came to light.

Rizzo sued the city for breaching his contract that paid him nearly $1.5 million in salary and benefits.

Special elections were held after the arrests, and a new city council and mayor stepped in.

In wake of the scandal, California Controller John Chiang issued an order directing all cities, counties and special districts to report compensation information.

More than 85 percent of local governments complied with the order and provided salary data.

Chiang's office posted this information, along with pay for state and university employees, in a searchable database.

Public officials said they were uncomfortable subjecting their compensation to scrutiny, according to a survey of 217 senior state and local government officials across the country by Governing, a division of publisher and researcher e.Republic.

Overall, the results revealed public employees generally favored disclosing basic compensation information, but many feel they should not be identified by name.

"There is an underlying tension here. It's between people's desire for privacy and the public's right to know," said Daniel Schuman, policy counsel for the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit group promoting openness and transparency in government.

Up until about five years ago, few governments listed employee pay on websites.

Compensation information was typically obtainable only by filing public records requests or perusing annual government publications.

That's changed.

Fifty-seven percent of survey respondents said their salary information was posted online.

"When you take on a public role, that's just the nature of the business that all of this info becomes publicly available," Schuman said.